From Liberty Matters: Your Vanishing Right to Your Property
This how they do it, like Winston Churchill said of the Soviets. He analogized the Soviet efforts to eating a roast of beef. No, they did not go for the whole roast. They took a little slice at a time, until all that was left was the string. Then, they took that too.
In this case, the "they" is the American government, yours and mine. Here is another slice, which if successful, sets the precedent for taking all of your rights to property at a time and place of the government's choosing, local or federal.
Few people know anything useful about the concept of "rights," so they can look at the foregoing paragraph, maybe sense something not quite right, then move on to something else they cannot figure out.
Here is a quick course. Rights are principles of action needed by humans to fulfill their lives by their own decisions and behaviors. Rights come, not from God or any other non-real source, or from governments or other humans. They come from the nature of human beings. They are born into us as humans because we are humans. The are "unalienable," as our Declaration of Independence states because they are an inseparable part of us, or metaphysical, as rational philosophers will say. No one can take them away, i.e., alienate them from us or us from them. They can be violated and often are. The most basic right is the right to life, which means that humans once born must be free to engage in all activities to sustain and further their lives except one: They may not violate the rights of other humans by initiating force or fraud against others.
Right behind the right to life is the right to property because the right to property is how one implements the right to life. Rights are intangible only as concepts. In reality, they are as real as the right to food grown or bought, or the money earned to buy the means to stay alive and prosper, or the right to anything one creates. That right to property includes the right to full use and to disposal. If you own an automobile or piece of property, then, by the right to property, you may use, sell, discard or do whatever you want with that automobile or piece of property provided your actions do not violate the rights of any other citizen.
When you have laws and courts which authorize legal theft of your property, you have immoral laws and governments, and you must change them back to the moral or perish from them.
To take someone's property by force, which is the only action open to government, either properly to protect you or improperly to violate your rights, you are establishing the principle that people's right to life will no longer be protected. The next short step is to declare people and their belongings to be property of the state. After the glorious regimes of the 20th century which did just that, declaring citizens just cells in the organ of the state and having no value except to serve the interests of the state, only the profoundly ignorant and the profoundly dependent personalities would not rise to exercise another basic right: The Right to Liberty.
It is coming to that.
In this case, the "they" is the American government, yours and mine. Here is another slice, which if successful, sets the precedent for taking all of your rights to property at a time and place of the government's choosing, local or federal.
Arguments Heard in Kelo v. New London
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that could impact the rights of property owners for years to come. The Court will decide if the City of New London, CT can lawfully take private property only to turn it over to another private entity that will generate more tax revenue. Early media reports have given a negative slant to the Justices' questions and have given rise to speculation the case is going badly for property rights' interests. Justice O'Conner asked Wesley Horton, representing New London "If the prospect of higher tax revenue justifies the forced transfer of property from one owner to another, would it be appropriate for a city to decide that a Motel 6 must give way to a Ritz-Carlton?" "Yes, your honor, it would be," replied Wesley Horton, New London's lawyer. Justice Scalia asked Horton; "You can take from A and give it to B, if B pays more in taxes?" Horton answers; "Yes, if it's a significant amount." However, Steven Anderson, spokesman for the Institute of Justice representing Suzanne Kelo, told Liberty Matters that they remain quite positive about their chances. He indicated the Justices were "clearly troubled by what the City of New London advocates, which is complete access to any property anywhere as long as there is the mere possibility it will make more money for the government." A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court is not expected until June. Hopefully the Court will agree with Justice William Paterson who wrote in the 1795 case, Vanhorn's Lessee v. Dorrance that the state must not invoke the "despotic power ...of taking private property...except in urgent cases. Where is the security, where the inviolability of property, if the legislature...can take land from one citizen, who acquired it legally, and vest it in another?" The Pirates of Eminent Domain
Few people know anything useful about the concept of "rights," so they can look at the foregoing paragraph, maybe sense something not quite right, then move on to something else they cannot figure out.
Here is a quick course. Rights are principles of action needed by humans to fulfill their lives by their own decisions and behaviors. Rights come, not from God or any other non-real source, or from governments or other humans. They come from the nature of human beings. They are born into us as humans because we are humans. The are "unalienable," as our Declaration of Independence states because they are an inseparable part of us, or metaphysical, as rational philosophers will say. No one can take them away, i.e., alienate them from us or us from them. They can be violated and often are. The most basic right is the right to life, which means that humans once born must be free to engage in all activities to sustain and further their lives except one: They may not violate the rights of other humans by initiating force or fraud against others.
Right behind the right to life is the right to property because the right to property is how one implements the right to life. Rights are intangible only as concepts. In reality, they are as real as the right to food grown or bought, or the money earned to buy the means to stay alive and prosper, or the right to anything one creates. That right to property includes the right to full use and to disposal. If you own an automobile or piece of property, then, by the right to property, you may use, sell, discard or do whatever you want with that automobile or piece of property provided your actions do not violate the rights of any other citizen.
When you have laws and courts which authorize legal theft of your property, you have immoral laws and governments, and you must change them back to the moral or perish from them.
To take someone's property by force, which is the only action open to government, either properly to protect you or improperly to violate your rights, you are establishing the principle that people's right to life will no longer be protected. The next short step is to declare people and their belongings to be property of the state. After the glorious regimes of the 20th century which did just that, declaring citizens just cells in the organ of the state and having no value except to serve the interests of the state, only the profoundly ignorant and the profoundly dependent personalities would not rise to exercise another basic right: The Right to Liberty.
It is coming to that.
posted by George Mason @ 3/03/2005 10:15:00 AM
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